The Lenore Marshall Prize: “Brooklyn Antediluvian” by Patrick Rosal

It’s a singular recognition to have your poetry collection named as the “most outstanding book of poetry published in the United States in the previous year,” but that’s what happened with Brooklyn Antediluvian by poet Patrick Rosal. The Academy of American Poets awarded the collection the Lenore Marshall Prize, which carries with it $25,000 and a special printing for all academy members. Not to mention the publicity.

Patrick Rosal

Rosal, an associate professor of creative writing at Rutgers University – Camden, has three previous poetry collections: Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive (2003); My American Kundiman (2006); and Boneshepherds (2011). His poems have been published in a wide array of literary magazines and journals, including Tin House, Poetry, New England Review, American Poetry Review, Grantland, and The Best American Poetry. He became a Fulbright Award recipient in 2009, and his poetry has received numerous awards and recognitions. He’s served on the faculty of the Kundiman summer retreat for Asian-American writers; two poems in Brooklyn Antediluvian included the word “Kundiman” in their titles. He lives in Philadelphia.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Kathryn Nuernberger and “The End of Pink”

Last year, The End of Pink by Kathryn Nuernberger won the prestigious James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, given for a distinguished second collection by a poet. It’s easy to see why.

The collection is marked by imagination and creativity, involving different poetry forms, mythic characters, historical figures, folklore, science, and even relationships. Reading it is akin to a rollercoaster ride – unexpected twists and turns, quick ascents, and sometimes thrilling (and terrifying) descents.

The titles of the individual poems give an idea of what’s happening. “Bat Boy Washed Up on Shore,” “The Saint Girls Takes in Strays” (one of several “Saint Girl” poems as arresting as they are disconcerting), and “Peter, Raised by Wolves (1726)” are only a few examples of the poet’s roving imagination.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Awards by the Academy of American Poets

In late August, the Academy of American Poets announced the recipients of a number of academy awards, which also carry significant financial stipends (and especially significant for poetry). This year, Richard Hass received the Wallace Stevens Award for mastery in the art of poetry (with a $100,000 check). Tracy Smith received the Fellowship for poetic achievement ($25,000); she won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2011. Rigoberto Gonzalez received the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poetry published the previous year (Unpeopled Eden) ($25,000).

W.S. Merwin’s Selected Translations won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award ($1,000). Luigi Bonaffini’s The Bedroom won the Raiziss / DePalci Book Prize ($10,000) for outstanding translation of modern Italian poetry into English. And Wendy Chen won the first Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award ($1,000) for her poem “They Sail Across the Mirrored Sea.”

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.